Vintage shots from days gone by!

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<TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=6 width="100%"><TBODY><TR><TD style="BORDER-BOTTOM: 1px inset; BORDER-LEFT: 1px inset; BORDER-TOP: 1px inset; BORDER-RIGHT: 1px inset" class=alt2>Originally Posted by scrubba
Jimi, you add a helluva lot to this forum to brutha. Keep it up ! scrubba
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Thanks Ed! I'm only one of MANY who love and contribute to Dog's great nostalgia thread, of course. And everybody posted GREAT stuff during the 10 days or so I was away from home. It's good to be back, 'cause I missed the daily fix of "Vintage Shots" !!!

We've talked before about the peak era of hoboing during the Great Depression, of course, but it's a topic always fascinating to delve into further, eh?



An eBay dealer sold this photo in August of three hoboes, apparently cooking up breakfast. I'm not sure,
but it has the appearance, to me, of an amateur shot, maybe done on large-format film (120-mm?) with an
old Rollicord. Though the photo speaks reams about the hobo's rough life out in the elements, one can
ONLY wonder who the men were, what homes they'd left behind, and where and when exactly the pic was
taken.

 

"The Big Rock Candy Mountain"
by Haywire Mac, 1928

One evening as the sun went down
And the jungle fires were burning,
Down the track came a hobo hiking,
And he said, "Boys, I'm not turning
I'm headed for a land that's far away
Besides the crystal fountains
So come with me, we'll go and see
The Big Rock Candy Mountain

In the Big Rock Candy Mountain,
There's a land that's fair and bright,
Where the handouts grow on bushes
And you sleep out every night.
Where the boxcars all are empty
And the sun shines every day
And the birds and the bees
And the cigarette trees
The lemonade springs
Where the bluebird sings
In the Big Rock Candy Mountain.

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
All the cops have wooden legs
And the bulldogs all have rubber teeth
And the hens lay soft-boiled eggs
The farmers' trees are full of fruit
And the barns are full of hay
Oh I'm bound to go
Where there ain't no snow
Where the rain don't fall
The winds don't blow
In the Big Rock Candy Mountain.

In the Big Rock Candy Mountain
You never change your socks
And the little streams of alcohol
Come trickling down the rocks
The brakemen have to tip their hats
And the railway bulls are blind
There's a lake of stew
And of whiskey too
You can paddle all around it
In a big canoe
In the Big Rock Candy Mountain.

In the Big Rock Candy Mountain,
The jails are made of tin.
And you can walk right out again,
As soon as you are in.
There ain't no short-handled shovels,
No axes, saws nor picks,
I'm bound to stay
Where you sleep all day,
Where they hung the jerk
That invented work
In the Big Rock Candy Mountain.
....
I'll see you all this coming fall
In the Big Rock Candy Mountain.

And the usually DELETED final verse:

The punk rolled up his big blue eyes
And said to the jocker, "Sandy,
I've hiked and hiked and wandered too,
But I ain't seen any candy.
I've hiked and hiked till my feet are sore
And I'll be damned if I hike any more
To be buggered sore like a hobo's whore
In the Big Rock Candy Mountain."




From Cockaigne to el Dorado, myths have fanned the dreams of both working poor and the disenfranchised of many societies with wistful visions of paradise. When the Crash of '29 rocketed the size of America's hobo subculture virtually overnight, the "Kings of the Road" had a ready made anthem at hand in the escapist song, "The Big Rock Candy Mountain." Though hobos were not an invention of the depression, their ranks burgeoned, as more than one of four people who had jobs in 1929 were without work by 1932.

First recorded (rather propitiously) in 1928, the utopian ditty is thought to have borrowed on themes and elements of numerous earlier songs and myths of various cultures dating back as much as centuries. Songster and one-time hobo Haywire Mac, aka Harry McClintock, claimed to have written the song, based on adventures of his misspent youth, and sang it on the streets for meal money in the 1890s. For some eye-opening insight, you can read a mega-ton of good items on the song on the 'net, starting with the Wikipedia piece.

But, the reason "Big Rock Candy Mountain" is a fave of mine is that it is more than just a light-hearted tune about out-of-work itinerant souls plucking cigarettes off trees and slurping from little streams of alcohol -- all for free. You don't have to listen hard to detect the desperate undercurrent of human suffering which the song's more light-hearted lyrics attempt to salve. There are, of course, the mentions of jail bars, "railroad bulls" with their truncheons and of bulldogs' teeth, all painful realities of hobo life. But there's also the gritty final verse, left OUT of nearly all the more polite versions. I'd note that, non-technically speaking, there was no police force to protect the lives of hoboes. Sometimes, it was decidedly the opposite case. An older second cousin of mine lost his life in a boxcar out west in 1937 or '38. Nobody ever knew for certain who killed him, or why. So much for the free-spirited adventure of the open road, eh?




Down and out: Walker Evans shot this candid for the Farm Security Administration on New
York's South Street as the depression economy hit bottom in 1932. Photo image thanks to
the U.S. Library of Congress and Art World Online.

 

I don't see any hoboes, I see gentleman before WWII, or just after the War on possibly a fishing, or camping trip. Check out the quality of there boots, and cloths. All are doing there respective jobs getting ready to make a meal. It even looks like fish, but I see no fish poles. I went on many a trip with my dad and uncles just after the war, and this would have been what our camp site would have looked like. Not one piece of clothing is tattered.

This is about post 31986

 

You could be right, Johnny. I only went by what the owner of the photo said. Maybe he fancied they were hoboes when they were just hunter/campers. Don't know.

 

i'm relatively certain that a thriftimart (affectionately known as: the big t)was the first grocery store i would have entered and it would have been, by looking at some of the cars, just before this time.

 

Is this Milwaukee? Transit colors are right and the building looks like the County Court House.

 

There are actually four men in the picture.

 

Here is a good one of my town in the 1940's.

 

...and none of them have beards.

 

I see 4 men and a rifle leaned against the rear tent, seems like a hunting camp

 

There may not be fishing poles but there are guns leant up against he left tent! They won't be Hoboes if they have firarms with them!
I thought that there may be a fifth man in the background to the left of the tents, but it may be undergrowth!

 

"OOH--That felt good"----Pull my finger again!!!

 

Finally- saw a familiar picture. This was a local race car.

Chapman Root (think, glass company and millions of Coca-Cola bottles) and co-owner Don Smith of Terre Haute, Indiana used their wives first names (Sue and Mary) to come up with the name "Sumar.
The blue and white Sumar Special designed by Frank Kurtis and Chapman Root started out as &#8220;fendered&#8221; cars. The Sumar had full fenders and the both cars had enclosed cockpits. Jimmy Daywalt, driver of the Sumar car did not like the fact that he could not see the front tires and complained of being claustrophobic with the &#8220;bubble&#8221; installed. After the 1st day of practice, the team took the &#8220;fenders&#8221; and the cockpit bubble off of the car. Jimmy Qualified the car 17th and finished 9th. In 1956, Marshall Teague failed to qualify the car. In 1959, the body was put back on the car and taken to Daytona to attempt a &#8220;Land Speed Record&#8221; run with Teague. After taking the car up to over 171 mph early in the trials, Teague crashed the car attempting to break the 180mph mark and was killed. The car was not raced again. It is still in the Root family.

More:http://www.angelfire.com/in4/jimmydaywalt/1955.htm

 

Taken early 90's based on the clothing and the fact that there is a early 90's chevy truck tailgate in the pic.

 

1600 pages! Woot!

Rob

 

I’m addicted to this thread,,,,

 

Is this Bondi beach in Sydney?

 

I still use SOS pads to clean whitewalls........

 

love looking at all these old pictures

 

And the SOS tip REALLY works!!!!!!!!!!

 

THIS thread IS the reason I return here on a DAILY basis ................ scrubba

 

Dog - Bet ya never thought it would go this far
Hail! Hail! Dog

 

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If Dog could figure out how to make this thread a pay per view he would get rich.